Vladimir_Nesov comments on Average utilitarianism must be correct? - Less Wrong

2 Post author: PhilGoetz 06 April 2009 05:10PM

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Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 07 April 2009 11:04:47AM 1 point [-]

This is the same sort of ethical judgement that an average utilitarian makes when they say that, to calculate social good, we should calculate the average utility of the population.

Nope. You can have u(10 people alive) = -10 and u(only 1 person is alive)=100 or u(1 person is OK and another suffers)=100 and u(2 people are OK)=-10.

Comment author: PhilGoetz 07 April 2009 02:42:49PM 2 points [-]

Not unless you mean something very different than I do by average utilitarianism.

Comment author: Vladimir_Nesov 07 April 2009 05:12:25PM *  3 points [-]

I objected to drawing the analogy, and gave the examples that show where the analogy breaks. Utility over specific outcomes values the whole world, with all people in it, together. Alternative possibilities for the whole world figuring into the expected utility calculation are not at all the same as different people. People that the average utilitarianism talks about are not from the alternative worlds, and they do not each constitute the whole world, the whole outcome. This is a completely separate argument, having only surface similarity to the expected utility computation.

Comment author: thomblake 07 April 2009 02:35:45PM 2 points [-]

Maybe I'm missing the brackets between your conjunctions/disjunctions, but I'm not sure how you're making a statement about Average Utilitarianism.